Not every community in the nation is having the success that Hamilton County authorities are in reducing drug overdose deaths.
Newtown Police Chief Tom Synan, head of the Hamilton County Heroin Coalition, gives an update on the Cincinnati-area situation as one of the experts interviewed on To Save a Life, A National Fentanyl Alarm premiering 9 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 31, on Scripps News (WCPO-TV Channel 9.6) and available on all streaming platforms.
Former ABC News correspondent John Donvan, and journalist-filmmaker Caren Zucker, co-host and co-produced the one-hour special about the country’s fentanyl crisis. The program concentrates “on saving lives and educating people about the dangers of the drug, as well as demonstrating how to reverse the effects of an overdose,” according to the Scripps News release.
“Locally, we've made a lot of changes in the Cincinnati-Hamilton County area. But across the country, there's still some in law enforcement who believe it is punishment,” Synan tells Donvan on the show. “I think what we're showing in our community is we've had three years in a row of reduction of overdose deaths; cut our reported overdoses in half."
Stephanie Quehl, a Loveland-area mother who lost her son Jack to a fentanyl poisoning, talks on the show about the stigma around drug use.
“It was a tough thing to come out to my community and say, you know, this happened to my family. But I also felt like staying silent would not save somebody else. And that's kind of what our foundation is going to say, you know, trying to save the next Jack, per se,” says Quehl, who co-founded the Do it for Jack foundation in 2022 in memory of her son, John Thomas “Jack” Quehl.
Co-host Zucker also tells her story about losing son Jonah to fentanyl. The synthetic opioid is so lethal that it only takes about two milligrams (the equivalent of five grains of salt) to kill an adult, she notes.
“Alarm bells are sounding for the fentanyl crisis, but not enough people seem to be hearing them," Zucker says. "The proof for that is that kids keep dying — kids who had no idea they were even being exposed to this deadly drug, cynically deployed by dealers to expand their profits, whatever the cost. We want to change that, to get the warning across clearly, effectively and lastingly.”
At one point, Donvan asks Synan what happens in Hamilton County “if you're with somebody and you're doing drugs together, and one person dies, and you call 911, do you get in trouble?”
Synan replies: “Well, we have a Good Samaritan law, so you do not get in trouble for minor drug possessions for drug paraphernalia. So what's going to happen in our area, especially in Cincinnati-Hamilton County is, we're here — look , I’m in law enforcement. I should be saving lives. That's the primary [thing]. So, we're going to go and make sure we can save someone's life, connect them to the fire, medical, and get them treated to the hospital. That other person that called — you just saved someone's life. So, you are part of this life-saving effort. You're not going to get in trouble on that end.”
To Save a Life will feature “stories of the losses happening across the country and bring insight on how we can all take steps to change the course of this trend that continues to be the No. 1 cause of death among Americans 55 and under,” according to Scripps News.
“The goal is to bring attention to solutions to the crisis and save lives. Too many kids keep dying even though precautions can be taken, such as calling 911 or having naloxone (Narcan) on hand and knowing how to use it,” Donvan says in the release.
To Save A Life also airs on Scripps News at 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 2; 10 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 3; 9 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 9 and Sunday, Nov. 10.
The national 24/7 Scripps News channel ceases broadcasting Nov. 15. Cincinnati-based E.W. Scripps Co. announced earlier this month it is shutting down the broadcast channel and eliminating more than 200 jobs in a budget move. However, Scripps News will remain on streaming and digital platforms.
Scripps News is available in more than 94% of U.S. television homes free and over the air with a digital antenna, on mobile with the Scripps News app, and online at ScrippsNews.com. It is also carried on streaming platforms and services, including Samsung TV Plus, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Pluto TV, Apple TV, Sling, Vizio and Xumo.
